The cosmic signs in the sky and on earth? We are moving into the era of the warring saints. These are the signs and these are things that will characterize this new age of a triumphant Church.

If you went through the videos and analysis I recommended to you last week you will notice that there is incredible expectations for the Second Coming of Christ. Add in "Irma-geddon" hitting Florida right behind Harvey hitting Houston and another two hurricanes coming right behind them, a huge earthquake in Mexico, North Korea threatening nuclear war....and then what is still to come...the enormous financial losses for both people and financial markets pose grave risks to the world economy that is overburdened with un-payable debt and shrinking household income.

And I can go on with many more signs of a world system that just cannot absorb the shocks that are shaking political and economic systems.

Naturally there is a cry in the Church...."Come Lord Jesus!"

And here is my prediction:

The Church today is as wrong about the coming of the Lord as the New Testament Jerusalem church was wrong about the nature of the coming of the Lord. Yes Jesus did say in the last part of Revelation "Behold I come quickly!" And He did. He came in judgment just as He said He would and that generation would not pass away until everything He said would happen did happen. Jerusalem surrounded by armies, great tribulation, the great temple destroyed, the nation of Israel destroyed and scattered and sold into slavery.

It was the end of the Old Covenant era. A small remnant came out of it to inaugurate a new era....120 in the upper room filled with the Holy Spirit to start the New Covenant era; the era of the Five-Fold ministry to build up the Body of Christ, the new Temple, the new Tabernacle of God on earth.

And this is where we are now...the end of the Five-Fold ministry era....the time now for world systems to crumble. The time now for the coming of the Lord into His temple in great power. The time for the restoration of Eden. The time for the healing of the nations.

It is going to be a traumatic time ahead. All era transitions in the history of the great work of God on earth are full of travail and great tribulations.

Let me give you some interesting scriptures to ponder over and hopefully new insights that might clarify for you some scriptures that seem very strange. Lets go back to Revelation and our great image of the New Jerusalem as described in the last two chapters of 21 & 22. Read them again with this in mind:

If you were one of John's Christians in the seven churches that this was addressed to you will be immediately struck by the size of this New Jerusalem. John measured the city at "12,000 furlongs" ("stadia" in the Greek) on a side. That means it was about 1500 miles on a side. And if you were a Roman citizen then you knew the Roman empire was about that size. So here is a new empire....coming out of the heavens that must replace Rome...the New Jerusalem. Now that is a major challenge that Jesus laid down for the small church of the day!

But how do you do it? Well you extend the walls of the city continuously until it has swallowed up all of Rome. Now here is where it gets interesting in this great vision.

The Walls of the City and the 144,000

The walls are said to be "144 cubits high according to the cubit of a man". Well in those days the "cubit of a man" is the length between his elbow and his finger tips or about 18 inches. But it is not so great a height so the interest is actually in what does the 144 stand for and the second interest is that Revelation is very careful to say that this wall has 12 foundations each named after the 12 apostles. What does this mean?

Try this for an interpretation:

While reading through this letter from John you come twice to a mysterious number of 144,000 that follow the Lamb wherever He goes. That would be in both Rev. 7 and Rev 14. And it says that this 144,000 come from 12,000 out of each of the 12 tribes of Israel.

Now I can tell you many commentators have tried to get a handle on this and many a cult group have been formed around the mistaken idea that they are the chosen secret 144,000. They are all wrong!

Firstly, the 144 cubits of the wall built on the foundation of the Apostles is metaphorically tied to the 144,000 out of all the tribes of Israel in Rev. 7 and 14. Now here is the key to understanding this. I am going to tie this to the 'saints that are to possess the Kingdom. And you will find the key to that in an interesting story about David and his mighty men.

The Mighty Men of David....and Jesus

If you go to 1 Chronicles 11 &12 you get this amazing tales of the mighty men of David that gathered around him to fight his battles. In chapter 12 you have a description of how out of each of the 12 tribes there came a group of what was called "mighty men". David inspired the whole nation with his great feat of slaying Goliath when all were afraid. What happened after that was that there were whole groups of "mighty men" emboldened at what David had done who joined themselves to him and just about each one did mighty acts of war far in excess to what David did. But they recognized that he was the Lord's anointed and while they fought for David that anointing would be upon them to do great deeds.

In 11th chapter of Chronicles we have the story of how David challenged his men to who will be the first to take the Jebusite city of Jerusalem, and Joab took on the challenge and prevailed and was made the head of David's army.

These great men of war and valour followed David wherever he went to win him a kingdom and a city of Jerusalem.

This is the picture in Revelation 7 and 14. Notice that after the vision of the 144,000 in chapter 7 you have judgments on the earth and the fall of Babylon in chapter 11 and the nations of the world are become the nations of our God and of His Christ.

Notice after the 144,000 of Rev. 14 you have judgments on the world and then in Rev. 17 & 18 you have the fall of Babylon and then follows the coming of the New Jerusalem and the healing of the nations in chapters 21-22.

God is once again raising up a group of "David's mighty men" to do great exploits in the earth and win territory for the Kingdom of God by extending the walls of the New Jerusalem and thereby extending the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the offspring of David to cover the earth.

The Beast Empires

If you follow the prophetic story of the rise of nations and empires in the book of Daniel describes as "beasts" you will see the continuation of those "beasts in Revelation.

But Daniel 7:21,27 made this great prophecy...
Daniel saw a great beast terrible and with 10 horns and that tore up the earth and made war against the saints of God and prevailed against them, but this also what he saw...

"I beheld and the same horn made war against the saints and prevailed against them until the ancient of days came and judgment was given to the saints of the most high and the time came for the saints to possess the kingdom....and the kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and all dominions shall serve and obey him."

So there is a time when the saints are persecuted and oppressed and ruled over by foreign dominions and empires. And then there is a time in prophetic history that something happens.....enough is enough. Like Samson's whose hair grew out and pulled down the temple of the Philistines...so the saints of God have grown up into the full stature of Christ through the teaching and care of God's apostolic offices in the Church.

And now is the time....not the Rapture, not being taken out of the earth! It's not the supposed Antichrist who possesses the earth...it is the saints that possess the earth.

The signs are in the heavens and on earth and in the Church.

What is happening in the Church? Have you noticed people are getting restless? People are getting tired of meetings and talking and conventions and being an audience for speakers. There is a whole group of Gods mighty people rising up wanting to get out and take territory for the King. They have been trained, taught, and now it is time for action.

Who are these mighty men of God? Well for one they are men and women and youngsters and ordinary people who God has called to do extra-ordinary things.

What are they to do?

Well it is quite simple...all of human affairs and all assets of planet earth are to be brought under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

That means some are called to bring lost sinners under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Others are called to teach and disciple those new converts.
Others are called to bring agriculture and business under the Lordship of Jesus.
Others are called to brig world finance under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Others are called to bring the discoveries of science and technology into the Kingdom of God.

Can you see the trend here?

We are at the end of the progression of "beast empires" who rule over the saints and who rule over the world.

Why?

Because they have run out of ideas and run out of solutions to the world's problems. The only solution left is the conversion of people and nations unders control so that the earth which was made by the Word of the Lord can respond to the Word of the Lord in His saints. They have the solutions.

But you cannot build a new world without new people. That is why in Rev. 21 &22 you have the picture that the city of God has walls...and outside the walls are those who refuse to fall under the Lordship of Jesus and those who are in the city are those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.

That means to me that I am not interested in ruling over sinners. Nor am I interested in building up the businesses of sinners or their empires or their dreams and desires. The time for that is coming to an end. Because their dreams and their business empires and their political empires are now coming to an end.

That is what the great transition is all about that we are now entering. The world system is crumbling around us and you will see it more and more around you in the time ahead. And you will see that church as Sunday morning meetings is not going to be working either. You are also going to see the phenomenon of ordinary people anointed by God are going to find one another and form Apostolic teams of warriors to win territory for the Kingdom of God in the strangest of places.

And these new conquered territories won by the "mighty men of Jesus" will step by step extend the walls of the New Jerusalem until it covers the earth.

That is the new era we are moving into.... and that is the meaning and interpretation of the sign in the constellations of the sky on 23 September 2017!